Have you ever wondered what old "English" (the Anglo-saxon's language of the 5th century) looked or sounded like ?
Check this (click on audio to hear it with Real Player) : http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/texts/ohthfram.htm
Old English had declinations and conjugation like in German and Latin. The structure of the sentence was very much like German or Dutch now. However, as it does not contain any words of Latin origin, it is almost completely ununderstandable. I wonder if Scandinavians could comprehend it a bit better (any around on the forum ?). I can recognise a few words like twentig (twenty), land, wintra (winter), sumera (summer), etc. Some are still the same as in German or Dutch : lang (long), weg (way)....
Find out more here (there are full lessons of Old English !) : http://orb.rhodes.edu/textbooks/OEindex.html
This link is for the History of English : http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html
Check this (click on audio to hear it with Real Player) : http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/texts/ohthfram.htm
Old English had declinations and conjugation like in German and Latin. The structure of the sentence was very much like German or Dutch now. However, as it does not contain any words of Latin origin, it is almost completely ununderstandable. I wonder if Scandinavians could comprehend it a bit better (any around on the forum ?). I can recognise a few words like twentig (twenty), land, wintra (winter), sumera (summer), etc. Some are still the same as in German or Dutch : lang (long), weg (way)....
Find out more here (there are full lessons of Old English !) : http://orb.rhodes.edu/textbooks/OEindex.html
This link is for the History of English : http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html